Category Archives: Integrated Photo Applications

My name is Mitz from http://tips4pc.com/ and I have been a Windows computer geek for over 25 years. I have seen software come and go over the years, succeed and fail, but Windows Live Photo Gallery is definitely a keeper.

I know this software is not new, however I feel that people are not seeing its full potential. Some of the features included with Windows live Gallery are so new to all of us, that we do not even know we have these amazing abilities on our computers.

Without further ado, I will mention some of my favorite features in Windows live photo Gallery.

#1. Windows Live Photo Gallery – Searching

Windows live photo Gallery has its own Find tab entirely dedicated to finding the photo or video you want on your computer. This makes it so much easier to find a lost photo or picture on your computer.

Simply go to the find tab at the top of the program.

Choose a folder from the left navigation pane. If you do not know what folder to choose, I usually click on my pictures folder.

You can search by dates, tagged faces, star rated, or even simple text search.

In the screenshot below, I first pressed on the Months icon and narrowed my search down to April 2011. After doing this I pressed on the text search icon on the right. Now I can type in what I am looking for and the search has already been narrowed down for me.

#2. Windows Live Photo Gallery – Photo Fuse

This is by far my favorite feature in Windows live photo Gallery! You can get three or four pictures and turn them into one really great photo. Look at my examples below. Initially I started with two photos, took the best from them both, and then ended up with a photo where everyone is facing the front.

How to fuse photos together?

Select two or more similar photos in the Windows live photo Gallery by putting a tick in the left corner of the photo. This means it is selected.

Go to the create tab at the top and click on the photo fuse icon.

Select the area of the photo that you want to replace.

When you have done this you will see some choices appear. Pick the best part of the photo by clicking on it.

Your photo will now be changed instantly.

Go through and change all the parts of the photo that do not look right.

When you are happy with your picture you can click on the close file icon at the top.

Your picture will be automatically saved. You will see that you now have a new version of the picture in the folder where the original pictures were saved.

#3. Windows Live Photo Gallery – Retouch Tool

If you are an expert at retouching photos using Photoshop then you will probably cringe at the thought of using anything else to do the job. Let me tell you that this retouch tool is just a quick fix and will not do the same job as a professional photo editing program.

Here is an example below. Look very closely at the clothes line in the background. In one photo it has a cloth on the line and in the other it does not. I removed the cloth in literally one second.

All I did was select the area and it was taken away. Now with this kind of photo the Windows Live Gallery retouch tool worked well for me.

How to retouch a photo?

Double-click on the photo that you want to retouch.

Click on the retouch icon at the top of the screen.

Select the area on the photo that you want to read touch. For example, I selected the cloth hanging from the clothesline. You may not be able to select the entire section, therefore just choose a small area.

As soon as you choose the area it will change.

When you have finished retouching the photo simply press close file.

As I said, this photo retouching tool is really just for the simple jobs but it is very handy to have around because it is so quick to do. I definitely will be using for jobs likes this..

#4. Windows Live Photo Gallery – Importing photos and videos

It is fantastic that Windows live photo Gallery is able to import photos and videos from your digital camera. Back in the days when Windows XP was king, we had the Microsoft scan and camera wizard to import photos to our computers. Unfortunately when Windows Vista came along, the scan and camera wizard disappeared from existence. This is why it is great that Microsoft has bought out Windows live photo Gallery as I see this program as more than an equivalent to the Microsoft scan at and camera wizard.

How to import pictures?

On the home tab in Windows live photo Gallery, simply press on the import icon.

Make sure your camera or device is connected to the computer and on so Windows live Gallery can find it.

Choose your camera from the list and click import.

Now you get many choices when import in your photos to your computer. You can review organize or group photos so you will have no trouble finding them in a year or two.

When you are done choosing, categorizing, and so on, choose import.

I strongly suggest that you check out Windows live photo Gallery for yourself! It is seriously an all in one program that is absolutely amazing because it is free. There are so many more features included with this software that it would probably take an entire day to go through.

This latest release of Paint.NET (November 6, 2009), might not be quite Photoshop in disguise, but it’s a pretty serious contender.

While it can’t perform some of the more esoteric functions of Photoshop, it can certainly assist even an average photo hobbyist achieve spectacular results – results which are generally not achievable in a free photo application.

I have always been a big fan of Adobe Photoshop, the trendsetter/innovator for all photo editor and image manipulation software, but I stopped buying Photoshop at version 7, and in 2004 switched over to Paint.NET.

The downside of Adobe Photoshop especially for typical users (other than its price – which is formidable), is it’s huge size on disk; it’s very challenging platform requirements, and an extreme learning curve which demands time and training.

Most of us don’t need the flexibility, or the power of a high end (read: expensive), photo editor. Instead, we’re generally looking for an application that’s small (at less than 5 MB, Paint.NET is small), fast, and free, with an intuitive interface that’s very easy to use; especially for those with only modest previous experience. Incidentally, for everyday basic photo manipulation, Irfanview gets a real workout on my machine.

You don’t have to take advantage of all of the powerful features built into this impressive application of course – see fast facts below. You can just stick to those tools you are most familiar with, including resizing, cropping, correcting red eye, flipping, and rotating. As well, you can perform a wide variety of additional image adjustments, including brightness, contrast, and applying special effects such as sharpen and blur.

Fast facts:

Interface – Simple, intuitive, and innovative user interface. Every feature and user interface element was designed to be immediately intuitive and quickly learnable without assistance. The interface is also enhanced for Aero Glass if you are using Windows 7 or Vista.

Performance – Extensive work has gone into making Paint.NET the fastest image editor available.

Layers – Usually only found on expensive or complicated professional software, layers form the basis for a rich image composition experience. You may think of them as a stack of transparency slides that, when viewed together at the same time, form one image.

Special Effects – Many special effects are included for enhancing and perfecting your images. Everything from blurring, sharpening, red-eye removal, distortion, noise, and embossing are included. Also included is our unique 3D Rotate/Zoom effect that makes it very easy to add perspective and tilting.

Adjustments – Adjustments are also included which help you tweak an image’s brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, curves, and levels. You can also convert an image to black and white, or sepia-toned.

Powerful Tools – The facilities for creating and working with selections is powerful, yet still simple enough to be picked up quickly. Other powerful tools include the Magic Wand for selecting regions of similar color, and the Clone Stamp for copying or erasing portions of an image. There is also a simple text editor, a tool for zooming, and a Recolor tool.

Unlimited History – Everybody makes mistakes, and everybody changes their mind. To accommodate this, every action you perform on an image is recorded in the History window and may be undone. Once you’ve undone an action, you can also redo it. The length of the history is only limited by available disk space.

Active Online Community – Paint.NET has an online forum with a friendly, passionate, and ever-expanding community. Be sure to check out the constantly growing list of tutorials and plugins!

Automatically Updated – Updates are free, and contain new features, performance improvements, and bug fixes. Upgrading to the latest version is very simple, requiring only two clicks of the mouse.

I have always been a big fan of Adobe Photoshop, the trendsetter/innovator for all photo editor and image manipulation software.

The downside for typical users though, (other than its price – which is formidable), is it’s huge size on disk, it’s very challenging platform requirements, and an extreme learning curve which demands time and training.

Most of us don’t need the flexibility, or the power of a high end (read expensive), photo editor. Instead, we’re looking for an application that’s small, fast, and free with an intuitive interface that’s very easy to use; especially for those with only modest previous experience.

IrfanView which is one of my favorite photo applications, not just mine; there have been over 34 million downloads, is not just an image viewer, but an image browser, converter, and an editor as well. Best of all, you’ll find the interface intuitive and very easy to use. If you’re curious, this application is named after its developer Irfan Skiljan.

With IrfanView you can fix and enhance digital photos including resizing, cropping, correcting red eye, flipping, and rotating. As well, you can perform a wide variety of image adjustments, including brightness, contrast, and applying special effects such as sharpen and blur.

I have been using this neat little program for years and with every new release it just keeps getting better. The latest version – version 4.20, released July 16, 2008, includes plug-in support for most image, video, and sound formats, including MP3, AVI, audio CD, and WMA. An added bonus in the latest version is you now have the ability to Draw, Erase, Fill, Rotate, and Draw an Arrow.

(Click pic for larger)

Fast Facts:

Free

The most downloaded Image Editing Software, out of 2618 products, on CNET

Small – only 1.2 MB

Many supported file formats

Multi language support

Thumbnail/preview option

Slideshow (save slideshow as EXE/SCR or burn it to CD)

Show EXIF/IPTC/Comment text in Slideshow/Full screen etc.

Support for Adobe Photoshop Filters

Drag & drop support

Fast directory view (moving through directory)

Batch conversion (with image processing)

Multipage TIF editing

Multimedia player

Print option

Change color depth

And much more

Unless you have unusual image editing requirements, IrfanView should more than meet your needs.

If you’re a geeky photographer, then Image Analyzer 1.30 could be just the program you’ve been searching for. This small (1.24MB), free, advanced, feature-rich image editor, comes complete with serious enhancement and analytical tools.

There’s a wealth of tried and tested free software out in the wild blue of the Internet that will meet virtually every need you’re likely to have. Take a look at the following recommended free downloads that will help you communicate, improve your photos, have some fun, and manage and protect your system.

All of these applications have been well tested over the years for reliability and functionality, and all have developed a strong, loyal following.

OpenOffice 2 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages including Microsoft Word.

WordWeb is a one-click English thesaurus and dictionary for Windows that can look up words in almost any program. It works off-line, but can also look up words in web references such as the Wikipedia encyclopedia.

This is one of my favorite photo applications, with good reason. It’s not just a viewer, but an image browser, converter, and an editor as well. You’ll find the interface intuitive and very easy to use. This program is loaded with features including, renaming, cropping, color adjustments, lossless JPEG transformation, drop shadow effects, image frames, scanner support, histogram and much more.

Free software that helps you locate and organize all the photos on your computer, edit and add effects to your photos with a few simple clicks and share your photos with others through email, prints and on the web.

AVG Anti-Virus Free 8.0 now incorporates protection against spyware through a new combined anti-virus and anti-spyware engine as well as a “safe-searching component” which has been incorporated into the new AVG Internet Security Toolbar. This program scans files on access, on demand, and on schedule and scans email incoming and outgoing. For those on Vista, you’re in luck, it’s Vista-ready

Spyware Doctor Starter Edition from PC Tools is an excellent choice, as a secondary line of defense. This free version of the award winning program, with its easy to use interface, is used by millions of people worldwide to protect their computers; it’s reported there are a million+ additional downloads every week. Be aware however, there is no real-time protection offered with this version and this is the reason I recommend this application as a secondary scanner only.

Having tested virtually all of the major anti-spyware applications over the past year or more, I’ve settled, for now, on Spyware Terminator primarily due to its strong real-time protection against spyware, adware, Trojans, key-loggers, home page hijackers and other malware threats. Spyware Terminator excels in strong active protection against know and unknown threats. If anything, I find it perhaps a little overly aggressive. On the other hand, better this than the alternative.

The definitive free firewall, Comodo Firewall protects your system by defeating hackers and restricting unauthorized programs from accessing the Internet. I have been using this application for 10 months and I continue to feel very secure. It resists being forcibly terminated and it works as well, or better, than any firewall I’ve paid for. This is one I highly recommend. Amazing that it’s free!

If you are an experienced/advanced computer user and you’re looking for a program to strengthen your anti-malware resources, then HiJackFree is one that’s worth taking a look at. This free application, from EMSI Software, offers a potent layer of additional protection to add to your major anti-malware programs. The program operates as a detailed system analysis tool that can help you in the detection and removal of Hijackers, Spyware, Adware, Trojans, Worms, and other malware. It doesn’t offer live protection but instead, it examines your system, determines if it’s been infected, and then allows you to eradicate the malware.

In my view, Ad-Aware 2008 Free is the best free spyware and adware remover available. It does a good job of protecting against known data-mining, Trojans, dialers, malware, browser hijackers and tracking components. The only downside with the free version; real-time protection is not included.

ThreatFire 3 blocks mal-ware, including zero-day threats, by analyzing program behavior and it does a stellar job. Again, this is one of the security applications that forms part of my front line defenses. I have found it to have high success rate at blocking mal-ware based on analysis of behavior. Highly recommend this one!

SnoopFree Privacy Shield is a powerful application that guards your keyboard, screen and open windows from all spy software. I have been using this application for quite some time, and I have been amazed at the number of programs that have requested access to my keyboard and screen. In particular, programs that I am in the process of installing. If you’re serious about privacy, this is a must have addition to your security toolbox.

The next generation MSN Messenger. It comes with everything that were already available in Messenger, and a new i’m Initiative that makes helping your favorite charity as easy as sending an instant message.

A multi-protocol Instant Messaging client that allows you to use all of your IM accounts at once. Pidgin can work with: AIM, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, ICQ, IRC, MSN, Yahoo!, MySpaceIM and many more.

CCleaner is a freeware system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from your system – allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner. But the best part is that it’s fast; normally taking less than a second to run.

Glary Utilities, a free all-in-one utility, is a terrific collection of system tools and utilities to fix, speed up, maintain and protect your PC. Personal experience with this application for the last 8 months has convinced me that a typical user can really benefit by having this application on their system. With this free program you can tweak, repair, optimize and improve your system’s performance; and its ease of operation makes it ideal for less experienced users.

Do you want to get a better understanding of what programs are being added to your computer? Then WinPatrol is the program for you. With WinPatrol, in your system tray, you can monitor system areas that are often changed by malicious programs. You can monitor your startup programs and services, cookies and current tasks. Should you need to, WinPatrol allows you to terminate processes and enable, or disable, startup programs. There are additional features that make WinPatrol a very powerful addition to your security applications.

Revo Uninstaller is a superior program to uninstall programs from your computer. This free program with its advanced and fast algorithm scans before, and after you uninstall an application. After the program’s regular uninstaller runs, you can remove additional unnecessary files, folders and registry keys that are usually left over (those “orphaned” registry entries we talked about earlier), on your computer. This feature is a definite plus.

This free utility has the most comprehensive knowledge of auto-starting locations of any startup monitor, in my view, and shows you what programs are configured to run during system boot up or login, and the order Windows processes them. These programs will include ones in your startup folder, Run, RunOnce, and other Registry keys. You can configure Autoruns to show additional locations, including Explorer shell extensions, toolbars, browser helper objects, Winlogon notifications, auto-start services, and more. Autoruns goes considerably beyond the MSConfig utility bundled with Windows.

The longer you use Windows, the more cluttered your registry can become, especially if you regularly install and uninstall software. Many applications, on being uninstalled, leave behind “orphan” registry entries. They don’t remove all traces of themselves; causing problems such as sluggish performance, system lockups, or a bloated registry that takes longer to load on startup. With the click of a button, Regseeker will scan your registry for these fragmented files, and safely remove them.

I have always been a big fan of Adobe Photoshop, the trendsetter/innovator for all photo editor and image manipulation software.

The downside for typical users though, (other than its price – which is formidable), is it’s huge size on disk, it’s very challenging platform requirements, and an extreme learning curve which demands time and training.

Most of us don’t need the flexibility, or the power of a high end (read expensive), photo editor. Instead, we’re looking for an application that’s small, fast, and free with an intuitive interface that’s very easy to use; especially for those with only modest previous experience.

IrfanView which is one of my favorite photo applications (not just mine; there have been over 34 Million downloads), is not just an image viewer, but an image browser, converter, and an editor as well. Best of all, you’ll find the interface intuitive and very easy to use. If you’re curious, this application is named after its developer Irfan Skiljan.

With IrfanView you can fix and enhance digital photos including resizing, cropping, correcting red eye, flipping, and rotating. As well, you can perform a wide variety of image adjustments, including brightness, contrast, and applying special effects such as sharpen and blur.

I have been using this neat little program for years and with every new release it just keeps getting better. The latest version – version 4.20, released July 16, 2008, includes plug-in support for most image, video, and sound formats, including MP3, AVI, audio CD, and WMA. An added bonus in the latest version is you now have the ability to Draw, Erase, Fill, Rotate, and Draw an Arrow.

Fast Facts:

Free

Small – only 1.2 MB

Many supported file formats

Multi language support

Thumbnail/preview option

Slideshow (save slideshow as EXE/SCR or burn it to CD)

Show EXIF/IPTC/Comment text in Slideshow/Full screen etc.

Support for Adobe Photoshop Filters

Drag & drop support

Fast directory view (moving through directory)

Batch conversion (with image processing)

Multipage TIF editing

Multimedia player

Print option

Change color depth

And much more

Unless you have unusual image editing requirements, IrfanView should more than meet your needs.

SerifSoftware puts an interesting and unusual twist to the usual “try this application for free for 30 days” we are all pretty familiar with.

Serif releases older versions of their current software for download at no cost, to hopefully entice at least some users to upgrade to current versions of their popular software.

Despite the slightly dated appearance of SerifSoftware’s PhotoPlus 6, this is not an ‘old’ program that’s been revived just for give-away. PhotoPlus is still an amazing photo editing application that enables you to fix and enhance digital photos, create bitmap graphics and even web animations.

With PhotoPlus, you can easily adjust brightness and contrast, color balance, remove red-eye and make numerous other image editing adjustments and enhancements.

And here’s the “Plus” – You’ll find a large number of tools for creating web-savvy images. As well, a collection of web animation tools will help you import and export GIF files. You can even let PhotoPlus do all the hard work and create animations for you.

Image slicing tools are another web feature that are surprising in a free package. With these tools you can sub-divide an image into invisible segments, each of which can then be given a hyperlink and popup window. Alternatively, you can add hotspots to your web page.

Because of its simple layout, this is an easy program to pick up and work with, especially for those with little or no previous experience.

Web Images – Divide images into individual sections that can be clicked on to link to other web pages and websites, just like text hyperlinks. PhotoPlus 6 creates all the HTML code ensuring your images appear properly.

Export Optimizer – Simultaneously view up to four previews that display the relationship between image file size and quality, making it easy to decide how to save and export images for every purpose.

Photoshop Express Beta is a new, just launched, free online service from Adobe which combines 2GB of photo storage space with Adobe quality image editing. Since this an online service there is no need for you to download any software to your computer.

According to Doug Mack, vice president of Consumer and Hosted Solutions at Adobe“Photoshop Express is a convenient, single destination where you can store, edit and share photos whether you’re at home, school or on the road.”

I have used Adobe Photoshop in one flavor or another for 10-12 years, with one degree of success or another, and it has long been the tool of choice for professionals and high-end users, but with Photoshop Express Adobe has brought its digital image-editing expertise to the masses.

Although it carries the Adobe tag, Photoshop Express is distinctly unlike Adobe’s other editing software, thank goodness, in that it is simple for beginners to operate.

In keeping with its one-click approach, a range of standard edits can easily be performed such as cropping, resizing, muting background and removing blemishes and red-eye. One of the most attractive features of Photoshop Express is its easy to understand interface, but the real bonus is that 2GB of free storage.

“This is a consumer-oriented product,” said Geoff Baum, director of Express Products at Adobe. “It’s designed to be very easy to use, very self discoverable, so if I’m a new user and I’ve never had experience doing image editing it should be very quick to figure out how to use the tool.”

To begin using the service, you will first need to sign up and create an account.

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